


Let go, and see what happens

by ysande



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Steve!whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 22:14:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14963175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ysande/pseuds/ysande
Summary: Steve and Danny are running through the wilderness. They may or may not have been exposed to anthrax. They may or may not have to save the day anyway.Written for a WhumpExchange, where the prompt was: “Stay back! The vial broke, I might be infected/exposed!"





	Let go, and see what happens

"You're an idiot," Danny calls to Steve, who's trudging ten paces ahead. "Honest to god, if there was a prize for having the least amount of common sense in an adult human male, it would go to you. There wouldn't even be other contenders. They'd award it no contest. But you know what, there isn't a prize, because there isn't a competition, because it's not a good thing to be as idiotic as you."

"You're the one who's choosing to be here," Steve shoots back, apparently as unflappable as ever. Danny thinks that the words might be terser than normal and wishes he could be sure. But then Steve bounds over a fallen tree like he's stepping over a kerb, leaving Danny scrabbling and cursing as he tries to keep up.

"You think I want to do this?" he shouts incredulously. Because Danny can think of precious few things he's wanted less than to be here, right now, with Steve, under these circumstances. His breath is heavy and damp through the ridiculous gas mask strapped to his face. It's bad enough trying to breathe during heavy exertion in the Hawaiian humidity, but through the mask, Danny would swear that the air has turned into a viscous liquid that he has to purposefully suck into his lungs with every breath.

"I told you to head back," Steve grunts. "You want to come along, that's on you."

Danny spares the energy to throw his arms in the air. "I take it back. You are not an idiot. That's too generous a word for you. You wish you had the intelligence to be an idiot. There aren't even words in the English language to describe how little sense you have."

"That's unkind," Steve points out.

"It may be unkind, but it's true," Danny declares. "I don't want to be here. Obviously. I _need_ to be here. Because I am not prepared to let my intellectually challenged partner wander off, alone, into the uncharted Hawaiian jungle, take down a potential terrorist cell, alone, with a good chance that he might die from some chemical warfare agent, _alone_." Danny realises that he sounds a lot more pissed off and put out than he means to, which is great, because the other alternative would have been sounding terrified.

"I'm not dying," Steve says mildly.

"We don't know what was in that vial!" Danny yells. His mask is heavy and irritating. He wishes he could yank it off and draw one good, steadying lungful of oxygen which hasn't been filtered through rubber and sweat.

"Anthrax," Steve answers, and Danny almost falls over as he tries to keep pace with Super Seal. Steve's face is bare to the world.

"What?!" Danny yelps.

"Anthrax," Steve repeats, not even slowing down, like the issue here is Danny's hearing ability and not that Steve has apparently been infected with a deadly biological weapon. "Word is, Stennerman had a contract to deliver some home-grown samples to DC."

"Jesus, Steve." Danny runs a hand through his hair, and is torn between wanting to hurry over to him and wanting to stay far, far away. _Anthrax._ "We are turning around right now, you hear? You absolutely need medical attention, right now. And psychiatric help, clearly. Maybe even more urgently. I will radio Chin and Kono, and they will take over in the hunt for this chopper filled with anthrax Easter eggs, and you will be locked up for a very long time in quarantine."

"Negative."

" _Negative?_ What kind of response is that?" Danny jogs the few paces between him and Steve and reaches a hand out to grab Steve's shoulder. Steve flinches away and glares at him.

"I told you to keep your distance, Danny."

"You told me you had this under control!" Danny most definitely did not squawk.

'I do," and, if anything, Steve glares even more fiercely at him. "Take five steps back, Danny. I mean it."

Danny does, his heart sinking, anger and frustration and terror swirling in his gut. "You said you had this under control. You said you were vaccinated against every bug known to man in your SEAL days. You burned your t-shirt and your cap and your jeans."

Steve's mouth twists in that way he has, when he has to square up against something he doesn't like but can't avoid. He glances down at his pilfered outfit, hastily stripped from the body of a dead goon, bloodstains and bullet holes and all. "I was vaccinated," he says. "Against anthrax, even. But that's not much use to you, Danny. And we can't be sure that it's not in my system, so if you're going to insist on coming with me, you're going to keep that mask on and stay five paces behind me."

"I wouldn't have to insist on coming with you if you weren't insisting on playing the hero!" Danny yells. "Call Chin. Call Kono! You don't have to personally solve every single problem on this island."

Steve is silent for a moment. "Chin isn't picking up," he says, the words tight and clipped. "I haven't heard from him for nearly two hours. Kono's been detained on bureaucratic grounds. That Australian ambassador's daughter is still missing, and Kono's been "reassigned" until the kid is found."

Danny gapes at him. "No-one else knows we're on Moloka'i."

"No," Steve agrees grimly. "And Stennerman's due to depart from Kalaupapa in a little under two hours. There's no time to get official and call in HPD. It's us, or nothing."

Danny scowls. He hopes Steve can see it even under the mask. "I don't like where this is going," he says darkly.

"Kalaupapa," Steve replies, with every appearance of seriousness, and Danny wishes he was close enough to punch him. "C'mon, Danny. We'll be done and dusted by lunch time. Piece of cake." And he turns on his heel and strides determinedly into the undergrowth, leaving Danny scrambling to keep up.

\---

They're still an hour's trek from Kalaupapa when Steve stumbles suddenly, and catches himself just as quickly. Danny has stumbled a couple of hundred times over the past few miles, but he finds himself darting forward to steady Steve anyway.

Steve waves him away. "Just caught my foot on something."

"Right," says Danny. "I guess you can only be a Super SEAL ninety nine point nine per cent of the time."

He supposes he's not surprised when Steve doesn't deign to answer him.

Sweat pours down the back of his neck, and gathers around his throat at the edges of the mask. He's not sure he can keep up with Steve's relentless pace for much longer, especially if the mask is preventing him from getting a full breath of air. Thankfully, Steve seems to have taken to heart his snide comment about super SEALs, and he slows down to a pace even Danny can match, even without having to ask.

"Thank you," Danny calls, because really, he's the bigger man. "Thank you for setting your pace so that us regular mortals can keep up. Really. I mean it. If I'm going to follow you all this way across an island that's even more inhospitable than O'ahu, I at least want to be there for the showdown at the end."

Steve pauses, his spine noticeably straightening before he ploughs forward again, any decrease in speed more than made up for by this sudden surge of determination.

"Seriously?" Danny demands. "You're seriously doing this. You're turning this into a race. I can't believe how petty you are, Steve."

Steve just shrugs and continues his inexorable march towards Kalaupapa, leaving Danny to gesture his outrage at an uncaring Hawaiian jungle.

They march on for a few more minutes, before Danny speaks up with something that's been niggling at the edge of his thoughts for awhile.

"Why anthrax?"

"Huh?" Steve sounds confused.

"Why anthrax? Why are people paying for Stennerman's anthrax? Isn't it freely available in the wild?"

Steve shakes his head. "I don't know." He sounds a bit winded, less Super Seal and more regular human, like Danny. Oddly, this makes Danny feel worse instead of better.

"You alright there, babe?"

"Yeah," Steve says shortly.

"You got a plan for when we get to Kalaupapa?" Danny asks. "Other than 'shoot the bag guys, blow up the anthrax'?"

"Nope. That just about covers it."

Danny rolls his eyes. "Why did I even bother asking?"

Steve shrugs, but turns away to cough before he can answer.

"Shit," Danny says, his stomach lurching with dread. "Steve..."

Steve just glowers at him. "I'm fine. And stay back, Danny."

"You are not _fine_!" Danny exclaims in disbelief. "We are lost in the middle of the Hawaiian jungle, Chin is missing, no-one knows where we are, and we're headed towards a den of terrorists, and you've managed to contract _anthrax_!"

Steve coughs again, wheezy and desperate. "It could be worse."

"It could be -- no, it couldn't! What is even the treatment for anthrax? Isn't it antibiotics before the symptoms set in? Hold on, doesn't anthrax have some kind of an incubation period? How is it you inhale death dust on minute and you're trying to expel your lungs just hours later?"

"Charming, Danny," Steve says dryly. He's clipping his words tightly again, Danny notices, now that he knows what he's looking for. "I don't know, okay? I don't know. But I do know that we've got less than an hour before these symptoms become a big issue for a lot more people. So we don't have time for this. Let's go."

And Danny hates that he's right, with every fibre of his being.

The pace Steve sets is slower this time, as if by acknowledging the problem he's also been bowed a little by the weight of it. On the one hand, Danny's grateful because with the stupid gas mask and his own entirely legitimate inexperience at hauling ass across terrain never meant for human travel, this pace is a lot more manageable. On the other hand, if Commander McGarrett has a goal and a deadline and he's not honed in on it like some kind of destroyer missile, he must be feeling worse than he's letting on.

Danny wants to ask him. Wants enough information to assess the situation. To assess _Steve_ , situation be damned. But he is one hundred per cent sure that his idiot partner would give his usual idiot "I'm fine" response even if he were literally dying in front of Danny, so he supposes he's doing everyone a favour by staying quiet.

"I can hear you. Thinking." Steve says, and he definitely sounds breathless now.

"Did you hear the bit where I called you an idiot?"

"Yeah," said Steve. Danny thinks he sounds amused. "You might... be right. First... time for everything." He staggers to a halt, leaning against a tree. Danny hurries over, trusting that the gas mask Steve has made him wear for the last ten miles actually works. Steve's face is drawn and grey, except for the scarlet flush across his cheeks. He's drenched in sweat, his stolen t-shirt sodden with it, and his skin not just damp, but wet, like he's just gotten out of the shower. He flinches when the back of Danny's hand presses against his forehead, not like he's startled, but like it hurts.

"Babe," says Danny. "We need to get you out of here."

"Yeah," said Steve again, grimacing this time. "Only way out... is through."

"I hate it when you're right," Danny tells him. "You know that?"

Steve just shakes his head, the ghost of a smile on his lips. He pushes himself away from the tree, and gestures ahead, the old Navy hand signal for move out. Danny sighs, and follows his lead.

The next mile is covered at a reasonable speed, but the mile after that is slowed by Steve needing to pause all too often to cough wretchedly and then to try to desperately pull oxygen into his protesting lungs.

Steve waves him away whenever he tries to help. "'m good, Danny," he says without a trace of irony. "Keep going."

And Danny does, because that's what he does. He follows Steve McGarrett into all of his hare-brained schemes, into situations involving both possible and likely death, even when it's against his own better judgement. Maybe Rachel was right. Maybe he does need his head checked.

He keeps a sharp ear out for the sounds of anything other than the rainforest. There are a dozen types of bird calls that he has no hope of identifying, and the sound of water coming from one vague direction or another. Danny's the first to admit that he's not really a nature guy. But for a change, it's the the sounds of civilisation that he's hoping not to hear. They're in no way ready to deal with an ambush by Stennerman. Danny's not sure they're ready to ambush Stennerman, when the time comes.

And right on this cheery thought, Steve takes a stride forward only to have his leg buckle from underneath him, like those sculpted muscles have turned to water. He pitches unceremoniously to the ground, not even putting an arm out to break his fall, just crumpling bonelessly into the damp undergrowth.

"Steve!" Danny leaps forward, but Steve is groggily trying to haul himself upright by the time it takes Danny to sprint their now customary five pace gap. "Stay still, you idiot!"

"Gotta keep moving," Steve rasps out, and ruins the sentiment by coughing harshly until his hands are trembling and his lips are blue.

"I don't think we can," Danny blurts out. "Steve, babe, this is _not good_."

Steve scowls stubbornly at him. "Help me up."

"You're insane."

"Can't stay... here." And he's right, of course. No-one knows where they are, and there's no help to be had here, over a mile from the outskirts of Kalaupapa, even if they desperately need it.

"Fine!" Danny throws his hands up in frustration again. "But I'm calling this one in. The Governor is going to have both our heads over this, and maybe he should have them. Clearly you've never used yours in your life, and me, beheading will be a better death than following another one of your crazy schemes."

He yanks out his radio, but is greeted with nothing but static. "Hello? Does anyone copy?"

Unfriendly white noise is his only response.

"Shit. Steve -"

Steve holds up a trembling hand. "Relax, Danny."

" _Relax?_ I can't relax when there is no way to radio for assistance! You might not grasp the seriousness of this situation, Steve, but --"

"Called. HPD. Air... ambulance. An hour... ago."

Danny blinks at him. "You what?"

Steve shrugs one shoulder, just a fraction. "Wasn't... feeling right."

"Whoa. You, admitting that? That's huge."

"Gotta go. Meet at Kalaupapa." Steve reaches a hand out towards him, and Danny hauls him to his feet as gently as he can.

"Alright, Commander Boy Scout. Let's go. I wish you'd told me sooner that we weren't going to take on all of Stennerman's people by ourselves. I lost years of my life over that."

Steve shrugs off Danny's helping arm, and staggers a few steps before finding his equilibrium again. "Live... in the present, Danny."

Danny splutters. "Oh, okay, you think now is a good time to give zen life lessons? How about one about finding wisdom, or about not jumping into terrorist nests without appropriate clearance and back up, and..."

The final mile is achingly slow progress compared to the earlier miles, but perhaps the thought of assistance has boosted Steve's spirits, because he somehow manages to find hidden reserve of energy that propels him relentlessly forwards, even as his breathing grows hoarser and more ragged, and he's coughing painfully as often as not.

They're within spitting distance of Stennerman's place when Steve slips out of Danny's grasp and sinks heavily to his knees.

"Give me... a moment," he rasps, but the steely determination hasn't left his voice.

"Sure thing, babe," Danny says, scanning the area around him. One hastily cleared space, with a small propellor plan resting at one end. Two wooden shacks, one with a roller door wide open, and stacks of pallet boxes waiting inside. The other looks like it's being used for accommodation. He turns back to Steve. "When's HPD due?"

Steve grimaces. "In about two... hours."

Danny swears, under his breath, and then he swears at Steve. "That's not soon enough! Stennerman's going to leave any minute now with his planeful of Death By Anthrax!"

"I know," Steve says. "We have to stop this."

"This is insane," Danny says.

Steve just looks at him.

"This may be the worst idea you've ever had."

Steve's breath catches in another coughing fit that makes Danny's chest ache in sympathy, but he doesn't look away.

"Fine," huffs Danny. "Let the record show that your insanity is contagious. Are you even in a fit state to shoot?"

Steve shrugs. "I've done more in worse."

Danny just rolls his eyes, because of course Steve has.

Their first volley of gunfire takes care of a trio of hapless sentries, whose return shots sail past without finding their targets. Danny's grateful for that, of course, but the noise does rouse the rest of Stennerman's crew, who do not react well to the sudden police ambush.

"We need to destroy the pallets!" Steve yells, and Danny can see he's found his second wind. His eyes are feverishly bright but his aim is unfailingly true.

Danny nods grimly, not needing to waste words on an answer. He and Steve have two grenades each, but the opportunity to use them will be the tricky thing.

A sudden, white hot pain tears across his arm, and Danny's suddenly nerveless fingers drop his gun. "Shit, shit, shit!"

He's fairly sure it's just a graze, but that knowledge doesn't help him as he scrabbles uselessly for his second weapon, Stennerman bearing down on him with a deadly looking rifle and murder in his eyes.

Danny sees his life flash before him, and it's predominately the reckless life choices he's made since Steve McGarrett barged unceremoniously into his world, but before he can die with that thought on his mind, Stennerman drops like a rock in a pool of blood, and Danny's frantic eyes scan the scene and settle on the incomprehensible but very welcome figure of Chin Ho Kelly, sporting one hell of a black eye and a very lethal shotgun.

Chin has evidently spotted Steve staggering towards the shack with the pallets of anthrax vials, grenades in hand, because suddenly he pulls his attention away from the melee in front of him and takes off at a run towards the shack.

"Chin!" Danny yells in desperation. "Chin!"

Chin's head whips around, "Don't destroy the vials!" he yells back. "They're crucial! We need to find out what they are!"

Danny doesn't understand, but Chin's word is good enough. He sprints towards Steve, who's fumbling with one of the grenades. "Put it down!"

Steve turns slowly to look at him, his eyes glassy and unfocussed. "Shoot the bad guys. Blow up the anthrax."

"Shit, Steve." Danny rushes forwards to take the grenade from Steve's unresisting fingers. Steve's chest is heaving with the effort of trying to get enough oxygen, the tendons in his neck taut and straining. He slumps to the ground, the sound of his tortured breathing filling Danny's ears. "Steve!"

Steve's eyes roll slowly back so only the bloodshot whites are showing. Danny doesn't hesitate. He rips off the stupid mask that he's worn - pointlessly, as it's turned out - for the past few hellish hours, and pinches Steve's nose shut, and tilts his chin up, and presses his mouth to mouth and _breathes_.

Danny knows CPR. It was part of police academy, and then when Grace was born, he'd trained in infant CPR and then child CPR and kept his certificates current. He knows that the latest teaching is that the breaths are unnecessary, that compressions alone are enough, that Steve has been infected with _anthrax_ , of all things, but he also think of how Steve has struggled for the last hour to get enough oxygen into his lungs, and he thinks of the risks of his own death weighed up with the risk of Steve's, and he breathes.

Afterwards, his arm throbs and aches and reminds him none too gently of how much of an exertion chest compressions actually are, but at the time, he feels nothing and knows nothing other than the sickening feeling of Steve, slipping away.

Unlike the HPD, the Air Ambulance arrives shortly afterwards, and Danny makes an absurd, fervent mental note that he's going to petition the Governor to have their budget increased. They arrive fully prepared to take two patients requiring quarantine, which startles Danny into silence.

Chin and a small child of maybe nine or ten, with a torn pink dress and hair hacked raggedly into an approximation of a pixie cut, wave them off as the Air Ambulance takes off.

The paramedics swarm over Steve with tubes and needles and masks, and Danny shrinks tight into his corner to keep out of their way, doing what's harder for him than anything else in the world: letting go to let someone else take over.

\---

Three days later, Steve's breathing tube comes out, and Danny's wallowing too deeply in self-pity to be happy.

"This is your fault," he croaks at Steve, who's been his only company in the isolation room the whole time. "I cannot believe you gave me anthrax."

"There's no proof it was from me," Steve retorts, and his voice sounds so raw that Danny, despite himself, feels a surge of sympathy.

"Only you could catch anthrax, infect your partner, and then deny it," Danny grumbles. "These are not normal things that happen to normal people, Steve."

"You're not normal," Steve rasps. "That's why you're always involved."

"I save your life, and this is the thanks I get? Not only do you infect me with a deadly disease, but you question my normality?"

Steve shrugs. "Hey, we got the bad guy. And you got early antibiotics. You've got nothing to complain about."

And technically, he's right. Their arrival had allowed Chin and his fellow prisoner the opportunity to break free, and they had known enough to stop Danny and Steve from destroying the new strains of anthrax developed by Stennerman, so that an antibiotic cocktail could be cooked up for all the people across Hawaii who had been infected. Danny had been the first to receive the cocktail Max had created, but even so, he'd felt like death warmed over for the first twenty four hours after exposure.

Steve had been buried under a flurry of complex machines and tubes for the first two days, Max fluttering around nervously with a pile of hastily scribbled chemical equations that he flashed at the attending doctors from the other side of the isolation glass, concocting Steve's cocktail of life-saving drugs with them hour after painstaking hour. Danny was sure the experience had taken ten years off his life.

"Nothing to complain about," he mutters. "Only you would say that and mean it, you big idiot."

Steve grins, totally unrepentant. "You wouldn't have it any other way."


End file.
